


Never Sleep Again

by wolfmanjoe4182



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, POV First Person, Pandemics, Virus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 17:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18673993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfmanjoe4182/pseuds/wolfmanjoe4182





	Never Sleep Again

(The following is an audio recording)

Is this thing on okay um this is Doctor Nathaniel Matheson trying

to make this recording in case I don’t survive. It has been a little

over seventy-two hours since I last slept I’ve been injecting myself

with small doses of adrenaline to stay wake but I fear soon even that

won’t work. Already there has been mass panic across the globe in lieu

 

of this global pandemic but I’m getting ahead of myself sorry feeling 

loopy.

The whole thing began four months ago when hold on let me look a

Robert Anderson was taken to the hospital by his wife after having a 

coughing fit in his sleep the doctors examined him but could only find

a congested chest and sent home the next night while his daughter was

at a sleepover, the coughing fits returned but this time much more 

violently with blood.

He was taken back to the hospital who again examined him and

initially diagnosis him as suffering from pneumonia and had him stay

overnight at the hospital, he was put in a room and all seemed to be

right. Until the next night when again while he slept, Robert Anderson

had a coughing fit but this time it ended in death. An autopsy was

ordered and the results were puzzling the pathologist had found his

 

lungs had pretty much liquefied examining a sample under the

microscope found an as at the time unknown microbe she sent the

samples to the CDC and that was thought to be the end of it.

 

Until the wife came down with the same symptoms and after her the 

daughter and a few days after her the kids that had been at the

sleepover with her who had spread it to their families. Worst of all

the father of one the kids had left on a trip on a passenger plane to

Europe and according to the flight attendants he had a coughing fit

while he slept he was later found dead in a Paris hotel room.

And from there the disease spread across the globe the top

epidemiologist were brought in to study the unknown microbe found in

the remains but the samples proved to be inert even samples taken

from live patients produced nothing of value. 

Now this is the part of the whole mess where I came in as one of

 

the top doctors in infectious diseases I was asked to help in any way

I can and at first, my results didn’t produce anything of use until I

stopped looking at the disease and looked at the people the disease

had infected what I found puzzled me.

Each person that had died had been asleep and further study

showed that each person infected near them had also been asleep I was

stunned a disease that was inert when a person was awake and virulent

when the person was asleep it was also only infectious to sleeping  
people.

I needed to test my hypothesis before I could tell my colleagues  
so, I took a blood sample from one of the still living patients and

injected it into one of the testing animals and sure enough as soon as

it fell asleep it experienced the same coughing fits I next took two

of the living patients and asked one to stay awake as long as

 

possible and told the other to sleep as normal the one that stayed 

awake did not suffer from anymore coughing fit’s the one that slept

continued to worsen until death.

My theory proved I took my results to the CDC and after their own

testing confirmed my results but now the question was what to do now

we had a disease and we knew now how it was spread but beyond that we

knew nothing. 

Here is what we did know the disease can only spread from one

a living being to another when both are asleep, the disease is only

deadly during the hours of sleep, and lastly the disease attacked the

lungs basically turning them into liquid.

After giving what we knew to the various world governments some

reacted let’s just say not very well they took those infected with

the disease and placed them in complete isolation and that seemed to

 

work for a while in stemming the spread of the disease but as more and

more people became infected it proved to be a fruitless endeavor it

seemed the only way to stop the disease from spreading was to stay

awake but a human being can only stay awake for so long before it too

become hazardous to your health as I can attest to but at the moment

it was the best we had.

Next came the riots people going to the streets and killing

anybody showing the slightest sign of infection the various

governments tried to stop this but they were suffering from a loss of

personnel. Meanwhile, all we medical professionals could do was fail

in our attempts to stop the disease.

Worse some of us started to show signs of the disease I was one

of them, we must have been infected before how the disease was spread

was identified and the long hours without sleep had kept it at bay.

Those of us infected were isolated from the rest of the scientist so

that we don’t infect anymore and curtail the search for the cure

which at this point seems to be an entirely fruitless exercise.

Which brings us to now as I’m making this recording I’m the last

of the infected scientist left alive and I know I won’t last long

already lack of sleep has already caused me to become loopy and to

suffer from hallucinations. Soon I will be dead but until then I will

continue to record and to work as best as I am able.

It now has been four days since I have slept all methods to keep

my awake have run out. Now I spend my last moments of cognitive 

thought making this recording and making my last will and testament I

just hope somebody can read my sloppy handwriting.

Can’t stay awake much longer can barely keep eyes open this is my

last recording I can only hope that someone anyone will find a cure

for this disease, I was never one for prayer or a belief in religion

but now in face of almost certain death and maybe the end of humanity

all I find asking God for help excuse me I’m starting to cry. Okay to 

finish up I leave this recording and all my notes in hope that they 

can help those yet afflicted with the disease to find a cure. This is

Dr. Nathaniel Matheson signing off.

 

(End of Recording)

THE END


End file.
